


for mine & me (as we make it)

by spock



Category: Animal Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Brother Feels, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, First Time, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:48:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24950341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: Pope's never been affectionate, but he's always managed to bend and change the weird, rough edges of himself for Deran.
Relationships: Andrew 'Pope' Cody/Deran Cody, Background/Past Barry 'Baz' Blackwell/Andrew 'Pope' Cody, Past Andrew 'Pope' Cody/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19
Collections: Little Black Dress Exchange 2020





	for mine & me (as we make it)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



Pope's only been in the house for five minutes. A week ago he started a gig at the lumber yard next to the mechanic shop they're casing, an easy way to gather intel and track movement without being too obvious. Each day he comes home with his body an aching line of pain. He stands in the hallway, enjoying the shock of air conditioning against his too-hot skin, the difference between their home and the outside world never starker. 

"Hey," Craig calls for him from where he's slumped across the couch, the same spot he'd been passed out in when Pope had left for his shift that morning. "Smurf wants you."

"Great." Pope rolls his shoulders and heads to the kitchen, finally moving from where he’d been rooted in the entryway. There's a large spread of half-prepped dishes spanning the counter. Pope can tell that something’s up. 

"I'm back," he says. Smurf's eyes pinch when they dart up to look at him. "And I didn't do shit," he adds, just in case. 

Smurf puts down the knife in her hand and turns to face the sink, running some water over a bowl of strawberries. "I need you to go out and find Deran."

Pope blinks. She can't be serious. "I just pulled a ten-hour shift."

"The school called." She says it like Pope's supposed to know why it matters. When he doesn't react, she turns to look at him over her shoulder, adding, like he's stupid, "Said he didn't show up at all today."

He bites back every single thought that comes to mind. How he and Julia and Craig and even fucking Baz, too-smart goody-two-shoes that he is, had some of the worst attendance records during their stints at school and Smurf had never once given a shit. Worse, how half their absences were her fault to begin with. How Craig had gone missing for an entire week back when he was fifteen, younger than Deran is now, and she hadn't so much as noticed. 

The weekend Pope spent in Juvie. How she hadn't bothered to bail him out, later claiming that she didn't want the cops to catch wind that his shoplifting had been tied to much grander plans, ones that she had no intention of cutting short just because Pope had gotten himself caught by being sloppy during the shift change he was meant to be scoping.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, alright."

Pope can tell from the pier that the surf isn't for shit. He sighs and rubs the palm of his hand against the top of his head, aggravated. He turns and walks back to where he'd parked, making an illegal U-turn in the middle of the cramped street to head toward Melba Bishop instead. 

Deran's there, sat on the edge of a drop, and watching some of the other kids do tricks. His knees are bent, working his own board back and forth in short movements, keeping it trapped on the wall sloped under the drop.

"Couldn't you have pulled this shit on a day I didn't have to work?" Pope hisses as he lowers himself to sit down next to Deran, muscles already starting to lock up.

Deran seems more resigned than anything, quietly sulking and pretending like Pope isn't there. Pope planned to grab Deran by the scruff of his neck and haul his ass to the car, kicking and screaming if need be. Once they were home he’d toss Deran on the couch and then head straight to bed without another thought, job done. 

Looking at Deran now, he can tell that won't be how it's gonna go. 

Not that he's ever been able to do that with Deran anyway. Craig, sure. Baz hasn't ever allowed himself to fuck up bad enough that Smurf's called in Pope, and Julia — well. 

Deran’s different. Always has been.

"You're way too old for this," Pope tries again. "Just because you're Smurf's baby doesn't mean she won't turn on you, you know."

That does it. Dearn makes a disgusted noise in the back of this throat and levels Pope with a look. "Dude, you don't get it at all," he says. 

At least he's talking. 

"So tell me." 

Deran reaches between his legs and grabs his board, setting it level on the ground they're sitting on. He leans back until he's laying down, legs dangling free over the edge. "You guys skip and what do you do?" He doesn't leave much space for Pope to answer, carrying on before Pope can even try to get his mouth open. "Hang around the fucking house. You know why I actually go to class? To get the hell away from her. The only reason she flips out like this is because I'm not tied to her fucking skirt." He huffs out a laugh. "I'm not her goddamn favorite."

Arguing the point wouldn't do any good.

"So why'd you ditch today then?"

Deran's able to sigh like the heartthrobs in all the movies. Pope used to find it cute, back when Deran was younger. Now Deran's taller than him, graduation on the horizon, and all Pope wants to do is shove him over the edge of the slope. "It's," Deran says, and then stalls out. "Whatever."

"It better not be _whatever_ since it dragged me out of the house after a long-ass fucking shift.” He decides to change tactics. "What did she do?"

It gets him an eye-roll and another sigh, this one like he's a bad extra on The O.C. "My whole life doesn't revolve around her, you know. I've got other shit going on, unlike you pathetic bastards."

Pope doesn't rise to the bait. "Where are your friends at, anyway?" he asks. 

Bullseye. Deran rolls his head to stare up at the sky, mouth set in a thin line. Pope doesn't really know the names of the kids Deran hangs out with. It's more Craig's thing, their two friend-groups an amalgamous blob. 

He tries to remember what fights were like at the tail end of high school. Pope never had friends, not really. None besides his brothers, and even that's a stretch. Deran's always been the only one who hasn't treated him with kid gloves. Who knows how much longer that'll last. 

Girls, usually, Pope supposes after a few minutes consideration, but that's never been Deran's thing, too good-looking to be second-choice or have to work for attention. Pope isn't sure that Deran's even ever had a girlfriend. 

That only leaves surfing. "They mad you made QS for the WCC or something?" 

"Or something," Deran says, and it's clear he wants the conversation to be over. "The minute I have an out, man, I'm gone." He looks at Pope from the corner of his eye. "I don't know why in the fuck you stick around, dude."

Pope can't imagine a life without his family, what he would be like without them. "Gotta look after your stupid ass, don't I?" He slowly starts to stand, gritting his teeth at how tight his muscles have become. "What would you do without me, huh? You'd die on the streets before Craig managed to find your stupid ass." 

He crouches and runs his finger's through Deran's bangs. Deran's face scrunches up like he's done since he was five, and Pope feels himself smiling for the first time all day. It's always been this way, Deran removed from them all, barriers up that only Pope can cross, and even then, only when Deran lets him. It always feels like a victory, when it happens. "You're my baby brother."

"Fuck off." The tops of Deran's cheekbones go red. He stands up himself, tapping the toe of his shoe against the tail of his board, tipping it up into his hand where he grabs the truck. "When I leave for the circuit," he says, and Pope's mind zeros in on _when_ , Not _if_. If any of them do manage to get away from Smurf, it'll surely be Deran. He's good, smart — and now he's got options. "I'll still talk to you. Obviously."

It makes Pope laugh, unexpected. Pope’s never been the type, usually. To smile, or laugh. It's what makes people wary of him. 

Deran always manages to drag it out of him though, when Pope never expects to. "Oh yeah?" Pope asks. "Thanks."

"Somebody's gotta look out for your crazy ass, right?" 

Pope shoves him hard enough that Deran nearly eats it, smiling from the corner of his mouth when Deran manages to recover at the last second before he trips ass over elbow. "Let's worry about you first, huh? Can we please go home already?" 

Deran knocks their shoulders together but follows when Pope starts walking back towards his truck. "Not yet," Deran says it with enough of a whine lingering around the edges that Pope can already tell he's going to fold to whatever Deran's about to suggest they do instead.

Each time Pope thinks the laughter's stopped, Craig breaks off into giggles again. It's the time of night where Pope knows there’s a high chance that Craig’s high off his ass, but Craig's also always been this sort of an asshole even when sober. It's a toss-up. 

Deran is heavy on his shoulder, Pope awkwardly supporting his dead weight.

Craig's laughter finally dies down enough for him to choke out, "You took him to a movie?!"

Pope grips Deran tighter around his waist. "Would you just get the fuck up and help me get him to his room?" Deran mutters something against Pope's shoulder, pressing his face into Pope's neck. His lips catch on the thin skin there, and Pope tries not to shiver at the sensation. 

He shoots Craig one of his looks, face immobile and eyes narrowed, and it does the job. He springs up from the couch and actually puts that gigantic body of his to use, shifting Deran's weight off Pope's shoulder and onto his own like Deran weighs nothing. 

Pope watches as they disappear off into the hallway. 

At least now he can finally sleep.

Pope wakes up to Dearn's face a few inches from his own, strange in the pitch-black of his room. "What the fuck," he says. 

"Oh good," Deran says. "You're awake."

To the left of Deran's head glows the neon of Pope's alarm clock, reading 03:00 AM. "You are the most annoying shit." Pope rubs the back of his hand across his mouth, blinking hard. "I have work in," it takes him a few seconds, brain still muggy and half-asleep, "two hours, fuck."

"It's your fault I'm up," Deran says, as if that makes any sense at all. "I wouldn't have gone to bed so early if you hadn't taken me to that boring ass movie." 

Pope's hand shoots out and twists in Deran's shirt, yanking him onto the bed. Deran makes a startled noise, but Pope's quick. He gator rolls Dearn into the middle of the mattress and then traps him in arm triangle. Pope doesn't use enough pressure to choke him, though the threat is there. He settles himself on top of Deran and lets his head rest back on his pillow. "Go to sleep," Pope says.

"Are you kidding me?" Deran's got his pissy voice going, but he isn't trying to break the hold. 

"Goodnight."

Deran sleeps with him every night after that. 

They used to do this all the time, back around the time when Pope was fifteen and Deran was nine. Smurf had gotten herself a new boyfriend, serious enough that Julia and Baz and Craig and he had all started worrying if maybe Smurf had been lying about Deran being her last. Deran's room had been right next to hers, and he'd fled to Pope's to escape the hours-long racket of her and the boyfriend partying throughout the night. 

It was only a few years later that Julia had left. 

It isn't the case now, but it doesn't escape Pope's notice that none of Deran's friends seem to be sniffing around the house these days like they usually do. Pope's managed to finish his recon mission at the lumber mill, back to being on Smurf's payroll by collecting rent checks at the start of the month and not doing much else with his day's beyond that. 

The job won't go off for a couple more weeks; the shop doesn't get their shipment of illegal imports until the last week of the month. 

He picks Deran up from school and drives them out to the beach most days, wastes hours watching Deran practice sets on the late-afternoon surf all on his lonesome. 

The streak gets broken eventually, Pope waking up one night to find himself alone in his bed. He stares at the ceiling, wondering if Deran had maybe left for the bathroom momentarily, or if he’d never shown up at all. An hour passes and he tries to tell himself that the feeling settling down within the pit of his stomach isn't anything like rejection. 

Pope gets up and walks the length of the hallway to Deran's room, resting an ear on the wood, listening. He tries the handle and finds it unlocked. He opens it slightly. 

The window's open, letting in enough light from outside that Pope can make Deran out in his bed. The covers are bunched up at his feet and he's got his dick out through the slit of his boxers, working himself over with his hand. 

He stares. It's a relief, in a way, that this is why Deran wanted to sleep on his own, not anything that Pope's done. He only comes back to himself when Deran's hand goes up to his mouth, the blissed-out look on his face going near-rapturous as he slips two fingers into his mouth, hooking them on the bottom row of his teeth, catching against his lip. 

Pope steps back and closes the door as quietly as he'd opened it, turning on his heels and going back to his room. Pope's hard enough to pound nails when he crawls back into bed. He sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, laying on his back with his arms at his side, stretched away from his body. 

Sleep takes a long time to return. 

It's been a month since Baz and he have genuinely gone after one another, which probably means they're due. 

Smurf loves instigating shit between them. Pope knows it, has always known it, but the knowledge hasn’t ever been enough to keep him from falling into the manufactured drama she creates time after time. The job coming up has the both of them testy, wondering who'll be running point. It was easy to ignore when he had Deran around every day, taking up all his free time, but now that Deran seems back on speaking terms with his friends, Pope’s been cast aside. 

Baz and he crack their shoulders together as they pass in the hallway, Pope carrying Deran's sheets towards the laundry room. It's been three days since Pope secretly walked in on him masturbating and he's noticed that Deran hasn't made any moves to change them. Three nights of Pope's thoughts racing deep in the middle of the night as he lays alone in his bed, itchy at the thought of Deran sleeping in those same sheets. Of him adding to the mess.

"Watch where you're going," Pope says. They stare at one another for a long second. Pope has shit to do though, so he cuts their bullshit short, carrying on towards the back of the house with the words echoing loud in the silence that follows them. 

He's just got the wash cycle going when Baz enters the room. "Just what the fuck is your problem?" 

Pope decides that he's not going to rise to the bait. "What are you on about now?" He turns and rests his weight back on the laundry machine, tilting his head up to meet Baz's gaze. 

"Cut the bullshit." Baz steps closer so that their noses are nearly touching, hips pressed together. 

It's the middle of the afternoon and there isn't anyone else in the house. Deran's still at school for a little while longer, Craig off doing God knows what, and Smurf has a standing date with their fence, likely going over how much of their last job still needs to be shifted and laundered. 

"Back the fuck up," Pope says each word slowly, clearly. 

Baz smiles at him, but the vicious look in his eyes doesn't waver. Then he turns on his charm, sudden and unprompted. "What's the matter, brother?" Baz’s tone is practically jovial, no trace of the anger from a second ago. 

"You aren't my fucking —"

He's cut off by Baz biting his way into his mouth, kissing him. Pope tries to get his hands between them, digs his fingers into Baz's shoulders, but it's no use. Baz is set, immovable, and Pope isn't putting up that much of a fight anyhow. It's been a while since someone last kissed him, and Baz has always known what Pope likes. 

It's like they're sixteen again, when Baz had realized that his whatever-it-was with Julia was turning Smurf against him more than solidifying his place in the family like he’d been angling for. When he turned to Pope, not that Smurf could ever know, getting Pope on his side instead since Julia was a dead-end. That blissful window of time before Pope had wisened up and realized that was what Baz was doing. Pope had stuck up for him because of it, controlled by the bliss of those kisses, after Julia had left. Baz, becoming his whole world, who burned him well and good when he’d decided to drop Pope to shack up with Cath instead. 

Insult to injury, that one. Probably how Julia had felt. 

Still, Pope hadn't known any of that then, hadn't the frame of mind to see any of it. He does now. 

Still, he lets Baz kiss him, kisses him back, tries to tell himself that he doesn't mind being everyone's last resort. A choice that people are pushed into rather than something they seek out on their own. 

Baz rolls their hips together, and Pope can feel the hard line of his dick through his jeans. He opens his eyes, looking over to the clock on top of the open doorway to see how much time they have before Deran might come home, Looks and finds Deran standing in the hallway, face a perfect picture of shock. 

Just his luck, really. 

Pope slides his hands up from Baz's shoulders to his neck, eventually settling them on the back of Baz's skull, fingers tucked into the thickness of his hair. He pulls back enough that he can speak and says, "Thanks, but no thanks."

It's the first time that he's turned Baz down, despite it all, and he's proud that Deran's the one to finally see him do it.

Baz looks at him like he's grown another head. "Seriously?" he asks, humping his hips forward.

Pope's dick was starting to get interested, but the sight of Deran has brought him back to reality. If he lets Baz do this, it'll just be another victory he can use to fuck Pope over with later. "I've got shit to do," Pope manages to step to the side, escaping the looming press of Baz's weight. When he glances back at the hallway he can't see Deran any longer. 

Baz's disgusted snort is exactly the same as Deran's, enough that it makes Pope smile a little despite himself. Baz reads it wrong. Always does, when it comes to Pope, and turns to leave without sparing another look Pope's way. 

Deran rushes into the room not thirty seconds after Baz's departure from wherever he’d tucked himself in the hallway to hide, eyes wide. "What the fuck?" His voice is low, as if he doesn't want Baz to hear, though Pope wouldn't be surprised if Baz had left the house altogether, ego bruised. 

"It's just Baz and his bullshit, man," Pope tells him. He glances at the washer to check the time left before he needs to transfer it into the dryer. That reminds him; "Hey, you need to wash your sheets more."

Deran stares at him like he's grown a second head. "Are you shitting me?" He glances over his shoulder, and he really must think Baz is waiting to storm back in for round two. "I just caught you making out with our brother, dude."

Pope rolls his eyes. "You didn't catch _me_ doing anything," he says. "And that shithead is not our brother."

"You're not gonna play that card now, are you?" 

He isn't in the mood for this. "You feel this way when he and Julia were fucking?" he asks, the low-grade anger that always seems to linger beneath his skin starting to flare up. He isn't sure what to do with himself, isn't used to being mad around Deran. 

Because of Deran. 

Craig and Baz regularly give Pope shit for how soft he is for Deran, and Pope doesn't much bother arguing back because it's true. Deran's been his; Smurf having him during a particularly low point in her life, Billy getting her caught up in shit that had her even more unfit than usual to look after a baby. Deran's always been the only one that's needed Pope. The only one that's never really been freaked out by him. 

Deran shakes his head. "It's different." 

Different, because it's Pope.

Pope steps forward, sliding his hands into Deran's hair. 

He kisses him, licking his way into Deran's mouth. Deran's like a statue, motionless, eyes wide. Pope knows this because he doesn't close his either, taking in Deran's face from up close. He was always a good looking kid, is now a man, on the precipice of breaking into the circuit, the whole world in front of him. 

On the precipice of getting out.

But he'll still talk to Pope, obviously. 

Pope wonders if that's still true. 

He pulls back and says, "Sleeping with my brother ranks pretty fucking low on the weird, fucked-up shit this family gets into."

Deran's mouth is red, lush, and his pupils are blown wide. Pope knows this is the kind of shit that makes people never want to deal with him again. Bridge burning, one of the court-mandated therapists had said to him, back when he still had bridges with people to burn. Testing things beyond their limit. He hates to think of Deran starting to flinch away from him, avoiding him, but what's done is done. 

Pope leans in one final time, no longer looking to prove a point. 

He taps the back of his knuckles to Deran's cheek when he pulls away, a gentle slap. "Those are your sheets," he says. "Make sure you put them in the dryer right after the buzzer goes. You're old enough to vote, you can do your damn laundry."

Pope misses dinner. It was guaranteed to be dramatic, Baz's pride on the line, but with what happened with Deran — 

He wanders around the beach, waiting until it's far past midnight to slink back into the house. He considered going to the apartment Smurf's given him at one of the complexes, but not coming home at all feels like he's avoided something, as if he's done something wrong, and that's not something Pope's willing to admit, especially if Baz has decided to spend the night too.

He lets himself in through the back yard, walking right into the hallway nearest his room. When he opens his door he finds Dearn curled up in his bed, on the side Pope usually sleeps on, bedside light still turned on like Deran fell asleep without meaning to. 

Pope isn't sure what it means. 

Stepping out of his shoes, Pope’s quiet as he walks over to his dresser, soundlessly pulling his shirt over his head and folding it, doing the same with his jeans until he's standing there in his underwear. 

Deran's eyes are open when Pope turns to look at the bed again. 

At least he doesn't have to figure out a way to get into it without waking Deran. 

Pope lays down on the other side of the mattress and stares at Deran in the dim light.

"Have you like," Deran asks, voice cutting through the quiet, "made out with Craig too?"

Pope grimaces. "I have standards," he says, mostly because he knows it'll make Deran laugh. Snickering fills the room and Pope feels the ghost of a smile haunt his face. He rolls onto his back, looking at the ceiling. "It isn't like that. I used to think Baz liked me.” He lets the wonders linger. “Before I learned better, I guess."

Deran moves closer. His hand settles on Pope's bicep. "Do you like me?"

He sounds young. Pope remembers feeling that way, being unsure of everything. Of Smurf. Cath. Baz. 

Pope rolls back onto his side, facing Deran. "You're the only person in the whole world who I like."

A blush settles high on Deran's cheekbones and makes its way down onto his chest and beneath the covers. Pope's always thought that he and Deran are the two that look the most alike out of all of them. Julia and he are the only ones fully-related, but she'd never been like him, too much like Smurf in all the worst ways, for all that she's tried to fight it. Deran's got Pope's cheekbones, his jawline. 

Or so Pope thinks, anyway. It's something he's always found comforting, being able to look at Deran's face and see so much of himself. 

"You're embarrassing," Deran says, bringing Pope back to the moment. 

Pope shrugs. "Probably." He closes the space between their faces, slowly, giving Deran enough time to duck away if he wants to. 

Their lips connect softly. It's the most chaste kiss Pope's ever had in his life. He scoots closer, pressing to Deran's side. He hooks his leg over Deran's hips and is pleased with the sensation of Deran's already-hard dick pressing into the muscle of his thigh. Pope pushes the covers down between them and blinks.

"Are you seriously naked right now?" 

Deran makes a frustrated noise and rolls them so that he's laying on top of Pope. Their dicks are separated only by the fabric of Pope's underwear. "Are you gonna give me shit right now," Deran asks, mocking Pope’s voice, "Or are you gonna let me suck your cock?"

Pope blinks once, then again, at the sensation of Deran pressing down further, grinding their hips together a little. "Have you ever sucked a dick before?"

The question must surprise him, because Deran stills abruptly. "No," he says, sounding a little put-out that Pope's made him admit it. "Have you?" Deran shoots back. 

Pope gives him a wide grin. "Sure," he says. "You want me to show you how?" Pope’s whole life has been showing Deran the ropes, and this is hardly any different.

Deran's mouth drops open a little. The skin on his chest is warm where it presses against Pope's. He can feel the exact second when Deran's breathing goes shallow. 

"Uh." Deran licks his lips. Their faces are close. Pope can feel the heat of his breath. "Maybe later."

He ducks down, kissing Pope again, with actual passion this time. Pope presses up into it, taking Deran's bottom lip between his teeth. 

They make out for a while, until Deran turns his face slightly, kissing Pope's cheek, down the taught line of his neck, all the way down to his chest to bite at his collarbones. Pope bruises easy and will probably wear Deran's marks well into the next day. Pope wonders what their family might say when they see them. Who they’ll think he was with.

He gasps when Deran reaches his stomach, sensitive, hyperaware of what's coming next. Deran hooks his fingers in the elastic of Pope's underwear and Pope raises without being told. Deran pulls them down as far as his thighs before he seems to grow impatient, leaving them there to trap Pope's legs together, both of hands settling around the length of Pope's dick, holding him upright. 

"I've always liked your dick," Deran says, and Pope isn't sure how he's meant to reply. If he's meant to. "You're the only one of us whose's uncut."

Pope has to clear his throat before he can speak. "Smurf was a still a hippie when she had me," he says. 

Deran's thumb is playing with his foreskin, rolling it down to expose his cockhead. He takes it into his mouth without much fanfare, licking right along the glans. 

"Fuck." Pope fights to keep his hips pressed to the mattress, motionless, not wanting to startle Deran. To hurt him. 

Deran starts making noises like he's having the time of is life and Pope has no idea what to do with himself. He lets his hands rise from the mattress, hovering uselessly until he gets the nerve to slide one into Deran's hair, the other settling on the skin of his neck, fire-hot beneath Pope's fingertips. 

Pope isn't especially big, but it's a shock when he feels Dearn take him into his throat, the soft, wet heat swallowing around him. 

"Fuck," he says again. "Sure you haven't done this before?"

Deran looks up at him. Pope can tell from his eyes alone that Deran's pleased, starts to get full of himself when Pope gasps when Deran firms up his tongue and curves it along the underside, increasing the vacuum of his lips. 

He's just about reached the end of his rope. "'m gonna come," he says. Deran pulls off, getting his hands back on Pope and jacking him off. Pope comes not long after that, most of the mess landing on the sheets. 

Pope doesn't give himself much time to bask in it, too focused on Deran. The speed of Deran’s breathing, wild look in his eyes. He uses his hold on Deran's head to pull him up, up, until Deran gets with the program and crawls over Pope's body, legs bracketing Pope's chest.

His erection bobs in the air between them. Pope grips Deran by the hips and pulls him forward a little further, so that he can get his mouth around the length of him. 

The first time Pope had done this had been during his stint in Juvie, before Baz had so much as thought about looking twice at him. He'd been sharing a cell with another boy who’d been scared out of his mind, just enough _off_ about him that Pope had been able to tell that he was gay not long after they’d been thrown in with him, probably in a situation much worse than Pope's own. A feeling had welled up in Pope; retrospect now told him it was that fraternal desire in him, that he'd seen a little bit of his brothers in the kid. Seen something of Deran, most likely. Pope had let him crawl into his bed, had comforted him. Found comfort with him.

He's done this a fair share since then, has gotten pretty good at it. 

Deran makes noises like he's dying and comes down Pope's throat without so much as a word of warning. 

Pope's going to have to teach him better, next time. 

Deran slumps down onto the mattress, crowding into Pope's space. He's cuddly after, which Pope likely should have expected. "You're really good," Deran says, before he kisses him. 

Pope's never been affectionate. Is unused to it. But he's always managed to bend and change the weird, rough edges of himself for Deran, and so he kisses back and does his best to move them both away from his wet spot, blindly reaching for the blanket at their feet to cover them. 

He'll do laundry in the morning.

Or at least wait until Deran's fallen into a deep enough sleep that Pope can get the fitted sheet out from under him without being likely to wake him up.


End file.
